


what was it we wanted again? (OR; 3k feet)

by tamsinb



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Ascension, Baltimore Crabs (Blaseball Team), Gen, bye bye friends, season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamsinb/pseuds/tamsinb
Summary: Kennedy Loser tries to hold everything together as the crabs prepare to ascend.
Kudos: 14





	what was it we wanted again? (OR; 3k feet)

* * *

_“you don’t have a lot to say_

_to me today, well_

_today feels a lot like yesterday”_

-“algae bloom”, told slant

* * *

The party was a lot quieter this time. It had to be, first of all, they all still had tinnitus from when the big peanut did its whole… thing. But it was also just that somehow it didn’t feel right to invite anyone else in. Kennedy Loser didn’t feel terribly put out by the small size of the engagement. Tonight was a night for just them.

They’d waited to start until everyone was out of the hospital. Thankfully, for the last game, the thing Silvaire had ridden in on instead of a horse was an honest-to-gods armored tank. Loser had never been more glad to have a friend with Horseblindness. Though the tank absorbed a lot of the blow, it was still a blow from a god. Some of the more foolhardy crabs had even decided to rush the peanut as soon as it showed itself.

And of course, Tot had annihilated both sun and moon and forged a new sun in the sky directly before all that -- he wasn’t going to think about it, the best thing to do would be to not think about it, so he simply would NOT think about it -- so the little guy took a while to be deemed ok.

And yet, improbably (but not quite miraculously) here they all were. Tired and victorious and taking a load off inside Silvaire Roadhouse’s eponymous Roadhouse. (It was always nice to have friends who could supply the venue.)

Here they all were. And they’d just fought god. Which is what they wanted.

And they’d become the undisputed best team in the league. Which is what they wanted.

Became strong enough to win more than anyone ever had before and be the first team to ascend.

Which was what he’d wanted.

“Right?”

“Mwerp?”

Kennedy Loser snapped back to himself. He was standing in front of Tot Fox, who was perched on top of a barrel with a little cushion on it. Which is what passed for a table seat at the Roadhouse.

“Oh, uh, sorry bud. Must’ve zoned out there for a sec. Anyway, how are you feeling?”

“Chrrrp.”

“Oh good, glad to hear it.”

“Mwwwwm.”

“I know it’s itchy but you gotta keep it on, Tot, otherwise the leg won’t set right. The vet was _very_ clear not to let you-”

“Bork!”

“Hey c’mon, you can handle it, tough guy.”

Just as Tot was letting out something in between purr and growl, the doors to the saloon kicked open and in came Pedro Davids, along with the two he’d roped into helping him load up his mobile home. _Might be going up three thousand feet. Or climbing. Better make sure I’m fully stocked,_ had been his argument. Pedro, who immediately upon being drafted by the Crabs had declared that the crabbiest thing to do would be to carry his home on his back. And by gods he’d actually figured out a way to do it.

“Thanks again for the help! Finn, for someone with one arm, you sure can lift.”

“Oh, this is nothing, you should’ve seen the time I set out on my solo fly fishing nature expedition…”

And there went Finn James, the second of the three, going off on some long winded story about past exploits in the wilderness. Ken was pretty sure he’d heard this one before. He turned to the third in the group and noticed they were already staring at him.

Kennedy blinked and Luis Acevedo was standing right in front of him, flickering. Not capital-f Flickering in the Blaseball sense, but just sort of staticky. Luis had been one of the ones to rush the peanut, and their holo-connection had been fried (or something) and the team had lost them for a bit. Luckily Zion Aliciakeys owed a favor to someone on the team, and she was able to get their favorite vocaloid back in mostly working order.

“Hey Ken!” beamed Luis. Then they frowned. “You feeling okay?”

“Uh, yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just look a little,” and they made a wavering motion with their hands, enhanced by the way the static warped their hardlight.

“Tired is all,” said Ken. “Big day.”

“Don’t I know it!” said Luis, with exaggerated sigh. “But no need to worry about me now, kay? I’m at one hundred-”

Luis Acevedo flickered briefly out of existence and reappeared directly behind Kennedy Loser.

“Percent!”

Ken turned to catch just the last bit of the pose Luis struck. He smiled. Luis was a good kid. Sorta wished they’d gotten to hang around more. He couldn’t stand the music though, too much beeping and not enough guitar solo for his taste.

“Just be careful, all right? Don’t wanna have to fix you up again.”

Luis saluted. “You can count on me!” Then they broke the seriousness with a laugh as they blipped away.

Ken caught his breath and surveyed the room. Calm. Good vibes. He realized he was instinctively looking for Tillman. Which made sense, most of his job as de facto team leader had been keeping that one under some measure of control. Maybe team chaperone was more like it.

He’d never been good at keeping Tillman under control, not like Combs was anyway. Ope, there he went thinking about Combs again. It always tended to happen while he was making the rounds at team gatherings. Which made sense, after all he was just doing what he’d seen Combs do so many times.

He walked (where Combs would have glided) over to the back wall, where Silvaire had lined up a row of bottles (was this safe?) and was showing Montgomery Bullock how to quickdraw. The representative of Montgomery County playing the role of Bullock today was named Price Mbeki, a spunky young character with a smirk and long black hair. (They’d invited the others who’d played as Monty over the course of the playoffs, but they all declined, saying something about impropriety.)

He tried to think of what Combs would do here. Interface with them? Silvaire was new after all, it might be good to check up on her. But she seemed adapted pretty well, taking all the weirdness in stride in a way he never could. Should he stop them? But it was her Roadhouse, and she’d let them stay, and besides no one walked through this corner…

In the end, Kennedy Loser decided to go to the bar.

Where, instead of a bartender, he found Parker Parra, taking the concept of ‘open bar’ to a literal extreme.

“All right, let’s see what we got here!” She poured a suspiciously clear liquid through a strainer into two shot glasses, and plunked them down in front of her two test subjects. “Can’t tell you what’s in it, none of these bottles have labels.”

The two figures at the bar drank their drinks in concert, without flinching, and set the glasses back upside-down.

“Tastes like rain falling off a business man’s umbrella onto a stray cat,” said Sutton Dreamy.

“Tastes like shit,” said Brock Forbes.

They looked at each other and nodded, finding each other’s description accurate.

“Hey come on I’m trying my best back here!” proclaimed Parker.

“I disagree,” said Sutton.

“You’re just putting whatever you find together in a shaker,” said Brock.

“Well I don’t see anyone else who wants to be bartender! And plus I’m working on getting a bartender’s license right now! I mean granted I’ve only had the one class but…”

“Hey all,” said Kennedy. He sat down at the seat next to Dreamy, Brock on her other side.

“THERE he is!” shouted Parker. “All right Ken! What can I do ya for?”

“You’re not gonna be doing anything to me,” said Kennedy. “Someone brought cider, right?”

“Got you covered,” said Brock, reaching under the table to pass Loser a bottle of hard cider.

Kennedy nodded as he took it. That was the thing about Brock, you could depend on him in any circumstance.

“Ugh, FINE!” yelled Parker. “I’ll go off and put something together that’ll REALLY knock your socks off.” She ran to the other side of the bar and began splashing drinks together with fervor, as Brock wandered off somewhere.

“So, uh, Dreamy,” said Kennedy, feeling the need to fill the resulting silence.

“Yes.”

“How. Uh. How’s it going?”

Dreamy paused to seriously consider the question, as she did every time you asked her a question. “For the team? Successfully. For myself? As ever. For you? You do not look well.”

“Yeah, yeah, just tired.”

“Big day?”

“Exactly.”

“I see. I myself found the day about as long as all others. Leap seconds and such.”

“Right. Um, not to uh, pry, or anything but. You and uh… that one girl. Didn’t you have a thing together?”

“Do. Still do.”

“Gotcha. And…?”

“And.”

“Well, we might be uh, climbing soon.”

“And you want to know how this will affect my love life.”

“Like I said I just didn’t wanna pry-”

“That is what you proceeded to do.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay-”

“You didn’t need to bother I’m fine.”

“But-”

“I don’t feel any particular way about it. I wouldn’t even know the word for the emotion it would be typical to feel in such a situation. But if I did I would be able to tell you I do not feel it.”

“Sutton it really doesn’t sound like you’re-”

“Perhaps that says more about your ears than my mouth.”

Kennedy sighed, feeling impressed despite himself at the way she was able to be incredibly intense without deviating from her monotone. He could never get through to her, which was usually fine because he knew she could take care of herself. But now, at the end of the road-

End of the road? That was what it was, wasn’t it? Then why did the phrase feel weird to even think?

Kennedy Loser didn’t think (he really truly didn’t think he knew how not to think about things) about who might not have bungled that conversation, and he also didn’t think about who he wished he could ask for advice, he just mumbled an apology and sat up from the table and set out to check on the rest of the team.

He passed Adalberto Tosser, asleep across three chairs laid out side to side. Ken was glad he could finally get some rest, he’d really put everything he had into it. Both pitching and godfighting.

Standing over Tosser in a sort of vigil was Forrest Best, whose mannequin head was manipulated by crab claws to look at Kennedy. He didn’t find it instinctually terrifying the same way he used to. The claws grabbed the mannequin’s hands and signed: _Pancakes with accoutrements._ Kennedy loved pancakes, especially with blueberries, so he took this to be a positive status report, and moved on. Delegation, he knew, was the sign of an effective leader.

Kennedy Loser counted on his fingers. That’s right, they only had 13 members now. Which meant there was only one person left to check on. He took a deep breath and tried to compose himself, then laughed when he realized he was taking it too seriously. She was just another player after all. Well, she wasn’t ‘just’ anything, but. You know.

Nagomi Mcdaniel sat like an empress and turned the barrel under her to a throne. She was in rare repose: no mask, shinai sheathed, even her auxiliary crab arm removed. Despite all she’d been through and accomplished she still somehow seemed… untouched? Above it all? She sat alone at a table in the corner, arms crossed.

“Hey, Gomi!” he called as he approached. “How goes it?”

She appraised him as he sat.

“A lot’s happened, huh?” he said. “Not sure I really even get it all. I’m sure you do, of course.”

She closed her eyes.

“Well. You all good?”

She said nothing.

“All right, cool! Well, find me if you need anything I’ll be-”

He went to stand and the world pitched around and his temples buzzed and he lost his balance back into his chair, sitting roughly.

Nagomi’s eyes opened.

“Are you… feeling okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, catching his breath. “Yeah of course, just felt faint. Why is everyone asking that?”

“You look pale.”

“It’s been a long day,” he said, an edge of desperation rising into his tone before he noticed. “We can’t all be made out of trees like Forrest, some of us have lungs, you know? And muscles, and they get tired sometimes stealing all these bases.”

Nagomi raised her eyebrows and Kennedy sighed.

“And everything’s great now, you know? Everyone’s happy and we did everything we wanted-”

“Everything we wanted?”

“W- well yeah, right? I mean, we fought god, right? A- and we won a bunch of games, and now we’re ascending, and-”

“And these are the things you want?”

Kennedy Loser tried to say something but he felt his head start to spin again. And before he knew it he was laying backwards, held up by Nagomi. She’d sprinted over impossibly fast to catch him.

 _Wasn’t I supposed to be… faster than her?_ he thought vaguely.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Just close your eyes. It will pass.”

He did so. He felt the world move around him still and he wasn’t sure if he should let it wash over him or try to still it with concentrated thought.

“Combs would be proud of you, you know,” said Nagomi, so suddenly it would’ve shocked Kennedy’s eyes open if he didn’t feel so damn sick. “In case what you wanted was to hear that.”

Kennedy sighed. “Nah, not really.” He’d meant it as a lie but when he said it, it rang true. “I just. I just wanted to keep everyone safe. Safe and together. That’s all I wanted.” He thought back to the happy movement and chatter in the Roadhouse, the unkillable vibes that lasted through hospital stays and reunions. He couldn’t let it go away. “And I figured being like Combs would be the way to do that but I think I fucked all that up…”

“If holding us together is what you wanted,” said Nagomi, “then you’ve done an admirable job.”

“But… But I…”

“I won’t let you contradict me. We play a capricious game administered by cruel entities. And yet, here we are, a group of crabs remarkably intact. And perhaps irresponsibly positive.”

“Tillman-”

“Is an asshole. And also still alive, in case you’d forgotten.”

“It’s not the same without him.”

“No it isn’t,” she agreed. “It’s not.”

“Still don’t know what happened with all that.”

“No one does.”

“Made Sutton mad at me.”

Nagomi shifted in her seat in a way that felt like a chuckle. “She’s sulky because her relationship might go long-distance. It’s not a comment on you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Kennedy let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and felt better for it. The two existed peacefully and prosperously in a silence that lasted until Nagomi saw fit to break it.

“When I lived on Hawai’i, we existed in Island Time, presided over by our Lady. In island time, things are held in perpetuity. One continuous line, an unbroken form. And along that arc we continue, moving forward yet always stationary. Gradually filling out all corners of our world.” She paused for a moment. “It was only once I came here that I knew what change felt like.”

“She just… kept everything the same forever?” He frowned. “Seems like too much to ask for.”

“It is too much. It is. It always is.”

Something in her tone made Kennedy remember what it felt like to stand on the field after the game, knowing this time what would soon descend.

“Did,” started Kennedy. “Did you ever find…”

“I did not find York, no. But I am confident he is safe. My precious dork…”

A warmth he’d never heard from her entered Nagomi’s voice.

“You’ll see him again,” said Kennedy.

“I’m glad you think so as well.”

Kennedy felt her smile like a glow passing over.

“And now,” said Nagomi, “you should rest.”

“Shouldn’t,” answered Kennedy. “I’ve gotta… we’re gonna ascend soon. And nobody really knows what that is so… I gotta be around, just in case… Just in case anyone needs help…”

“And after that? You’ll rest?”

“Yeah.” Yeah, he would. As they ascended, climbed or went up, whether 3000 feet or a distance immeasurable by human reckoning itself, he would keep everyone safe and together. And then, he’d rest.

Well, only for a little bit. He’d want to be back soon, after all.

***

“That’s actually pretty good!” exclaimed Parker Parra, turning away from the counter at the back of the bar. “Hey y’all, I found a drink that sorta works, kinda. Anybody wanna try?!”

But her call went unheard. Everyone in sight seemed occupied with a party that had since moved past her. Luis was putting on some kind of improvised performance, singing along with music that came from… somewhere. Sutton and Tot were ersatz background dancers, and Finn James was in the front row, waving his angler fish bulb like a glowstick. Tosser was awake now, and seemed to be arm wrestling Brock, who for his part was keeping an admirably straight face after losing continually to the other’s much bigger arm. The rest, Silvaire, Montgomery, Pedro, and Forrest, were all sitting around the Roadhouse’s rustic fireplace, swapping stories of adventure and life on the road, or in wilderness, or just in Montgomery county. Relics of lives fully lived.

And not a single one, thought Parker, who would take kindly to her interceding and forcing her drink onto them. She thought for a moment and then remembered precisely one Loser who would do basically anything you asked.

She looked and looked around and couldn’t find him until she tucked her head and saw him in a back corner, splayed out across Nagomi’s shoulder.

“Hey, there you are, Loser! Got something for you to try!”

Nagomi put a single finger to her mouth and Parker raised her shoulders sheepishly.

“Oh, sorry,” she whispered. “He asleep?”

Nagomi nodded, and gave a smile so tiny that it was nearly imperceptible. “But he’ll be back soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> So........ I wrote this before ascension and am just posting it now. But......... I think it's better in light of what happened and who did/didn't ascend? I'm in kind of a place right now... Anyway, have fun with this! It wasn't what I set out to write re: ascension, but I'm so glad it's what I ended up with, I'm actually really happy with it. Stay fresh!


End file.
